Backe: But there is a limit, too, in the number of men we can absorb. At that time we were told that one million was to be taken into the country, from the East. Now we have already got several millions.

Milch: You cannot count that way. Before all these measures in the second year of the war, the air force had 1.8 million men and today it has less than two million. The whole air armament which is a considerable part of the total war armament, in the course of the war or in the last 2½ years of the war has not even increased by 10 percent. In reality the total increase in this field amounts to about 125,000 to 150,000 men. We are always looking for those people. That is our main problem.

PARTIAL TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT R-124

DEFENSE EXHIBIT 31

EXTRACTS FROM THE STENOGRAPHIC MINUTES OF THE
FIFTY-FOURTH CONFERENCE OF THE CENTRAL PLANNING
BOARD, 1 MARCH 1944

STENOGRAPHIC MINUTES OF THE 54TH CONFERENCE[[108]]
OF THE CENTRAL PLANNING BOARD

Re:Labor Allocation on Wednesday, 1 March 1944, 1000 hours, at the Reich Air Ministry.

Sauckel: * * * I have a Gau armament supervisor in Thuringia and I have just been inspecting the plants in Thuringia. At the railroad car factory in Gotha I have set things going so that within a few days it will be turning out 20 percent of its production again. Everything has been done. But one thing you must bear in mind: Labor allocation as an institution must be independent and must remain so. Furthermore I must ask you not to support constantly the opinion of the armament inspectors: Sauckel must be put under the control of the Ministry then everything will be better. Gentlemen, please see to it that that does not happen this year. As a National Socialist of long standing I am determined to cooperate unreservedly with you, the Minister for Armament and Production, indeed with all those gentlemen, but, in consideration of the difficulty in this sphere of work I must be given the amount of freedom to make decisions of my own which was guaranteed me by the Fuehrer’s decrees and those of the Reich Marshal. I would never have taken on the task without these decrees, because I know it cannot be accomplished without them. I beg you therefore, to create such an atmosphere as is necessary among the lower ranks too so that the Gau labor offices in the first place may be recognized as organizations which are entrusted to me and put at my disposal for keeping the labor commitment in order on the lower levels. * * *